


to the temple of his eyes

by oftachancer



Series: here in this moment [10]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Ancient magic, Angst, Blood Magic (Dragon Age), Branching narrative, Demons, Fluff, M/M, Memory Palace, Non-Linear Narrative, Regret, Relationship Negotiation, Romance, Time Magic, graphic descriptions of smut and horror, writing experiments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:47:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22274302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oftachancer/pseuds/oftachancer
Summary: Aran Trevelyan, seventh scion of Bann Trevelyan, has had a truly terrifying, confusing decade. He survived an explosion, was marked by an ancient elvhen orb, became the mascot for a rebel faction of the Chantry, was stabbed by a magic artifact that has sent him hurtling through time and space... and that was only the beginning!After a recent revelation throws Aran for a loop, he and Dorian find themselves in an entirely new predicament.
Relationships: Dorian Pavus/Male Trevelyan, Male Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus
Series: here in this moment [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1162070
Comments: 18
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

The high ceiling was awash with rippling light from the atrium pool: a cascade of motion upon the inlaid pattern of white wood and mother of pearl that formed myriad shapes there. As a boy, Dorian had stared at them for hours and never seen the same pattern twice. Below, the familiar marble statue of Andraste gazed serenely over the water, dragons twined about her feet. He knew the clear water would be cool to the touch and sweet on his tongue, soft and pleasant, a reprieve from the heat outside. 

“I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

He glanced from the water, watching Aran lean against the open doorway leading off into the tablinum. He was smiling, all loose muscle and easy welcome, bare feet crossed at the ankles as he leaned. Ropes of pearls hung low across his chest, collecting at each shoulder in a mockery of a robe and a plain cotton towel was slung low around his waist, its knot barely holding it in place and likely about to slip loose at any moment. Dorian swallowed, suddenly parched.

“You're never happy at the Magisterium.” He held out his hand, “Come and let me show you something more entertaining.”

“Stop it.”

“Is not this shape useful?” Aran lifted one brow, the familiar expression oddly jarring, muscles ratcheting as if pulled by a rope. “Everything tells me about you. So will this.”

“It won’t.”

“No? Watch.” He drew a long, needle thin blade. 

Dorian had seen them in pristine glass cases, on shelves behind carved desks amidst curios and precious scrying mirrors. Blood letting daggers like these were collector’s items, his tutors and colleagues had always insisted. No one wanted to admit they were practicing blood rituals. No one wanted to admit to anything that would give anyone else an advantage over them. He watched as the fake Aran pressed the tip of the blade to his throat, a small trickle of blood dribbling down the hollow center to collect in the glass bulb at the end of the handle.

“You’re a demon,” Dorian stated in clear, uncompromising tones, if only to remind himself not to rush forward to stop the progress of that blade. “Am I supposed to scream in terror?”

“Scream in terror,” not-Aran repeated in Dorian’s voice, unsettlingly. “Yes. Let me hear that, too.” He pushed the blade into his own throat, shuddering as blood began to fill his eyes and leak out his nose. “You asked me to do this,” Aran’s voice gurgled. “I would do anything for you…” Slowly as though melting, he collapsed to his knees; his blood leaked down the incline of mosaic tiles into the atrium’s pool, staining Andraste’s white marble feet and turning her dragons red. “Being you will be so much more interesting than playing at underlings. Helpmeets. Isn't it frustrating, being overlooked? Won’t it be nice when you finally have what you are owed?” 

“I’m not owed anything.” Dorian gritted his teeth as he forced himself not to turn away. He wouldn’t give this thing what it wanted. His fear. His weakness. His heartache. His strength. None of it.

“Oh, that’s good. _Very_ good. I can use that.” His bloodstained lips curved lovingly as he died on the tiles gasp by frothy gasp, vacillating between Aran’s voice and Dorian’s. “Do you see what the Inquisition can become? Do you have the slightest inkling? When I am done, the Old Gods will be free and so will I; I will be you. Glory is coming. A song for a new age.”

“Keep talking.” Dorian inspected the backs of his hands, studying the scars on his knuckles where he’d thrown punches into stone at the news of Felix’s death in the wake of Aran’s. “This is all terribly interesting. Maybe try it with an accent? Or a jaunty ‘ha Ha ha!’ You know - like the villains in the carnival shows.”

“I am not your toy. I am Envy and I will know you.”

“Envy, is it?” he sniffed. “What? The Old Gods couldn’t afford a better class of demon? I’m to be harassed by the pathetic ones?”

Aran’s neck cracked, twisted, his body turning on itself in a grotesque mirror of one of his backbends. “Tell me, mage. Tell me what you think. Tell me what you feel. Tell me what you see.”

“No. Thank you.”

The atrium burned away in a blaze of light and he found himself standing in a dark stone room, the walls cracked by roots that had grown through the mortar. It stank of damp and blood, or perhaps the blood was still in his nose from before. No. Not real. None of this was real. He knew better than to believe it, even for a moment.

“Do you deny it?” Cassandra demanded from behind him and Dorian spun to face her. “Do you dare deny what you’ve done? Our one chance to make peace between the mages and Templars and now it’s over.”

He watched an oddly shadowed version of himself walking his fingers across the War Table, sneering, “I don’t see what you’re complaining about, Seeker. Our enemies have surrendered unconditionally. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“As if you could ever convince someone that you were me, trotting about in that much red,” Dorian muttered. 

The red velvet robes transitioned into dark blue brocade as Cullen crossed his arms behind Dorian’s shadow. “The Inquisition’s strength rivals any kingdom in Thedas. We can do whatever we need now.”

He watched his shadow pat Cullen gently on the head, like a dog. “Our reach begins to match the Herald’s ambition, but we will strive for more.”

“The Herald’s ambition?” Cassandra scoffed. “Or your own?”

Dorian’s imitation nudged Cullen forward. “Commander, I think the Lady Seeker’s proving herself terribly disloyal. Don’t you?”

“Is imitating what you can’t have your only pleasure? Have you tried finding another hobby? Chess, for instance?” Dorian suggested, “Or killing yourself?” 

A thick fog eked through the cracks in the walls, obscuring the table as Cullen drew his blade and advanced on Cassandra. _Accusing_. The voice was everywhere and nowhere. _Belittling_. _Is that the kind of man you are?_

Dorian forced a yawn, “Bored. I’m a bored man, at the moment.”

 _And a liar, too. Were you lying when you told him that you wanted to be remembered for making your homeland a better place? When you promised that you would never own another slave? When I am you, the people will never forget what you do to them. They will all be slaves to your will and they will love you for it_. 

“I find that highly unlikely,” Dorian squinted, “but you _are_ of the Fade. I suppose you can live in dreams as much as you like.”

Josephine emerged from the fog in full Tevinter garb, her eyes unseeing, “Who would stand against us when the Inquisition commands nations?”

“Other nations, one presumes.”

“Never. Do you see how glorious Thedas will be after you die? All of it, bent to your will. They will fall to their knees, one by one, in joyous obeisance,” Josephine giggled, bells scratching glass. “But good, my lord. Anything you desire can be yours, my lord. One last dance...”

“You are heedless, helpless, hasty,” Cole’s voice echoed through the fog, steady and slow as a lapping lakeshore. “You don’t have to do this. You can remember who you were.”

 _What are you doing here?_ The shredded everywhere voice growled. _Get out. This is my place._

“You used my face. I won’t let you use me to hurt them.”

“Cole?” Dorian pushed past Josephine as she stamped her feet and crossed her arms. 

“Get out!” Josephine screeched and the walls crumbled into ruins, sunset oranges leaking in through the breaks in the stone. 

Dorian ducked through an opening, stumbling out into a broad, unending plain. In the distance, the lazy slope either ascended into misted mountains or ended sharply in jagged, rocky ledges. A small wooden outbuilding stood in the middle of the nothing, smoke circling through its roof to dissipate into the steadily misting rain. Every droplet touching the short, damp grass seemed to speak, although the words made no sense. There was no order to them. No rhythm save the steady tumult. Some, he recognized. Words in Tevene, ancient and modern. In the trade tongue. Things he’d heard Solas and Birashi utter in frustration. And more and more, unfamiliar, overlapping. Halt? Blind? Empty? Or did that mean Summon? Cole stepped out of the creaking doorway, holding his hands aloft when Dorian snarled, twisting mana around his fingertips.

“Wait. Please wait,” Cole pleaded. 

“How can I know that it’s actually you?”

“You can’t, you shouldn’t, I know it’s hard.” Cole shifted from foot to foot, uneasy, a move Dorian had watched him make a hundred times as he tried to sort through the thoughts that blundered through his mind’s eye. “Envy is hurting you. Mirrors on mirrors on memories. A face it can feel but not fake. I want to help. You. Not Envy. I felt it pulling, pulling... We’re inside you. Or I am. You’re always inside you. And him. In some ways. And others. It’s easy to hear. Harder to be a part of what you’re hearing. But I’m here: hearing, helping. I hope. Hope is the thing with flowers. He plants the seeds. You think of the petals in the sunlight when the seed is grown. Envy hurt you, _is_ hurting you. I tried to help, then I was here in the hearing. It’s… it’s not usually like this. I think it might be... him?” 

Dorian watched his soft blue eyes flick and worry, darting in the shadow of his terrible, terrible hat. “I’m listening. Skeptically.”

“I was watching. I watch. Rhys knew there would be demons when the mages came. The Veil was always thin here. Even before. It was why Evangeline didn’t want us to come. So many people; so scared and angry. Of course there would be trouble. Rhys asked me to protect them. Told me how. When the others heard that he arrived - _this_ mind…” he looked around the peat moss plains, “they were impressed. Excited. They made Leliana drink tea to calm down. But I felt something stirring, following _you_. Like a cloak: imperial red, trailing threads of living liquid. It _liked_ you. Wanted you. I could feel it. It twisted its shape to someone you would believe; I suppose that was me. You believe me - believe _in_ me - but you’ve only just met me. Oh,” he paused, nodding, “not just. Only here. I hear it now. I see. Anyway. Envy is trying to take your face.”

“Yes, I gathered as much. It isn’t very subtle.” Dorian muttered grimly, “I suppose I should be flattered than an envy demon chose me.”

“I wouldn’t be,” Cole wrinkled his nose. “I heard it and reached out and then in and then… I was here.” He shrugged helplessly. “He is bright, breaking, breathing life between the places. It makes the dams dimmer.”

“Breaking,” Dorian repeated, trying to focus. Rain like whispers. Fog like songs. It was giving him a blighted migraine. “It told me that Aran needed help. That it was almost too late. Was any of that true?”

“Help. Yes. Help from you. I could make him forget the pain. The part that pains… That helps... no. We need all of him right now to fight. And all of you, even the parts you put behind curtains. There’s nothing either of you need to hide from, even though you think there might be. He is ice, breaking under heavy feet, but each time the warmth melts him, he is whole; ready to freeze back to solid so he can break again. You are his sunlight, but Envy is dark; it covers you like clouds. You are both frozen now.”

“We’re frozen… where? Back in the waking world?” Dorian asked. “So this is the Fade, really, or some neighbor to it.”

“All minds touch the Fade from time to time, but we are not there. Thoughts are faster. We’re here, inside you both, because the threads that bound you have yet to let you go. Outside, a blade is still falling, hanging in the air like a sunset.”

“If no time is passing, does that mean we’re safe?”

Cole’s nose wrinkled. Familiar. Concerned. “No. It will be good if you get out.”

“Alright, Cole.” Dorian looked across the vast green and gray. Sighed and watched the puff of his breath twist inexplicably into a rune. Dwarven? “If you are really Cole; I believe, for now, that you are.”

“I know.”

“How do we get out?”

“It’s your head and his. You like his head. You live in your own. I hoped you would know how to stop it.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“Maybe it needs to be together? _Together in all things,_ he thinks. _Three sides of a triangle, binding and equal_.” Cole frowned. “That will be more difficult.”

“You said we’re in… both of our heads? So he’s in here too? Somewhere?”

“Both, seamed together. Apart, alongside.”

“Do you know where?”

“I was trying to bring him to you, but I lost him.”

“Can you find him again? Can you take me to him?”

“...Yes,” Cole conceded after a moment’s hesitation. “But it’s…” he glanced back at the worn wooden shack. “Confusing here. He moves around very quickly. It’s a good place to avoid Envy; maybe that’s why it chose you instead. Or it saw the glimmering, gleaming glitter; it likes shiny things. Or it smelled you; I could smell you.”

“This is the one thing about blood magic that no one ever warned me about: the odor.” Dorian frowned. “Why do you say it’s more confusing here? It seems peaceful enough.”

“All that you’ve seen, all of this,” Cole gestured around them, “is seen through Envy’s eyes. People, places, power. If you keep going, the envy stretches. It takes strength to make more. Being one person is hard. Being many, too many, more and more, and Envy breaks down. You break out. If it tried to stay in here, it would fall apart like a handful of dust.”

“So if we make it follow us in and find a way to keep it here, we might tire Envy into submission.”

“Maybe. It’s better than sitting around waiting to lose your face. It’s a pretty face. Why would I think that? I don’t care about faces. Oh, it’s him. I hear it. There are so many voices. Ideas are loud here. Make them louder. Think of water.”

“Think of water?”

“Yes. Think of what he might think, thinking of water.”

So he did.

* * *

  
Dorian peered up the tall, thin trunk of a tree; parchment bark scarred by lines of ink, reaching - inconceivably narrow - and brushing the pillowy clouds in the blue sky above. A small figure dashed past him, laughing in a heedless bray that Dorian knew instinctively, even though the voice was higher, lighter. 

Aran. 

The little boy grinned fiercely, running full tilt through the trees, but a frustrated pout creased his expression as a taller boy ran past him. Blonde and older, smirking in triumph as he surpassed the younger, slapping the tree closest to the cliffs and rounding it to face him. “Too slow! Always too slow.”

“Am not!” Aran panted. 

“What are you even good for? They'll never let you be a knight, let alone a Templar, if you can’t even run.”

“I can run! I’m just shorter than you!” Aran scowled up at his brother, chewing his lip. 

“Yeah, but you’ll always be shorter than me,” the older boy grinned. “You’re the runt of the litter. That’s what Madame Ghies said.”

Aran rubbed his hand through his blonde hair; baby fine and glinting with hints of copper. A familiar gesture with a small unmarked palm. “Who says I even want to be a… a Templar or anything?” he asked.

“Because you have to be something. Otherwise, you really are worthless. You don’t want to be worthless, do you?”

“No…” Aran sniffled, furrowing his brow in concentration as sweat dripped into his eyes. 

“So you have to find something you’re good at.”

“I’m good at things.”

“Yeah,” his brother laughed, jumping to hang lazily off a low branch. “Like what? Crying like a baby?”

Aran’s lip trembled. “I miss Miranda.”

“Well, she was a freak. Freaks go away.”

“No, she isn’t.”

“Yes, she _was_ , otherwise, they wouldn't have put her in the tower.”

“She’s not a freak!” Aran shouted, red-faced. “She helped me reach the apples and she told me when the cat was going to have kittens so I could watch them and she even let me hold one and-“

“She was a freak and she could have killed us all and I’m glad she’s gone. You should be glad, too.”

Aran shook where he stood, practically vibrating with all the rage a five year old could possess. “You don’t know anything. You’re stupid!”

“I’m stupid, am I?” The older boy dropped to the ground, stalking forward, and Aran stumbled away from him. “You’re a coward. That’s what you are. That’s why you’re never going to be good at anything. That’s why you liked that freak, always hanging around her, hiding behind her skirts.” He advanced on his younger brother, grinning mercilessly, “But she’s not here to hide behind any more, little brother. You have to grow up.” His sapphire eyes glinted, beautiful and cold as gemstones. “You need to get over being such a scaredy-cat all the time. And I’m going to help you.”

Aran stared up at him, wide-eyed and naive. “You are?”

“Yeah. We have to make you face your fears, that’s all.” He lifted his brother up, swinging him in a circle until Aran started laughing despite himself. 

“Dizzy!” Aran crowed. “More!”

“More?” The elder Trevelyan smiled, “Okay. More it is!” He spun them again and again, turning closer and closer to the edge, his smile widening by the second. And then he let go, sending the little boy hurtling off the cliff’s edge.

Dorian ran, staring in horror as he watched the figure shrink, shrink, and land with a distant splash in the sea below, as the boy beside him laughed until he cried. On the shore, he watched the tiny figure paddling against the waves, his head barely staying above water. When he finally dragged himself back to the sand, he collapsed, sputtering and coughing up foam and water. He lay there with the waves lapping at his legs, staring at the sky, tears collecting in the sand pasted to his cheeks. Then he sat up, rubbing his cheeks raw, and slowly stood. “I’ll show you scared,” he whispered fiercely. He climbed up the cliff, cutting his knees and hands as he scrambled and slid and scrambled again. Minutes. An hour. “I’ll show you scared,” he mumbled as he cried and gasped and climbed again.

“And he can't climb for shit either,” the boy at the top of the cliff crowed as Aran crested the top. “Father will despair when I tell him.”

“I’ll show you scared,” Aran repeated grimly, and then took off at a run past his brother to dive headlong off the cliff back into the sea again. 

“Aran!” Dorian shouted, watching him shrink again.

“See what I meant?” Cole frowned as the cliff tipped sideways and Dorian fell headlong into the sea.

The water was cold, burning into his bones as he was dragged up through the water in Aran’s memory. 

A few feet away, Aran emerged, screaming in the middle of deep ocean, “Mythal!” he shouted as the storm raged above him, “All-mother!” A wave drives him under and he kicked up again, coughing and throwing up foam and other unmentionables as he struggled to keep his head above the waves, “I beg you! If I am to serve you, let me live!” He dove before the next wave could catch him, and emerged again, staring ahead through the storms at a familiar set of cliffs. “Fuck it, I’ll do it myself,” he snarled, coughing again, then sucked in a deep breath and dove under the waves.

The waves of salt sting gave way to blistering heat as Dorian spun, trying to orient himself. The walls of the Chantry were collapsing, tapestries aflame. Aran was standing in the middle of the building beside a pyre built of pews and shelves, staring at a stained glass window of Andraste as it warped. “I said I’d do it,” he muttered, kicking a broken pew bench and swiping his forearm across his eyes. “Away with you and let me watch it burn.” 

_The deed is finished_ , the flames crackled. _You have done your part._

“I’ve done your part,” he spat. “ _This_ is mine.”

The glass above him shattered, spears of slicing sharp raining down towards him, and he stood beneath them, arms outstretched, as if it were a waterfall. 

“Aran, don’t!” Dorian shouted again, but the man didn’t seem to hear him. Little wonder as, in addition to the talking fire, the cracking glass and burning wood also seemed to be speaking in insufferable, endless whispers. Dratted irritating, that. Dorian strode through the destruction, willing the flames away from him.

Aran shook his head like a dog emerging from water, growling, “I’m done. I’ve done enough-“ then cursed as he threw himself bodily to the side away from the glass as it pelted the marble floor like hailstones. 

Dorian grabbed him by the shoulder as he fell, yanking him up from the ground and into his arms. “Martyr,” he breathed, and dragged Aran’s head up by his hair to kiss him savagely; he bent the smaller man back as somewhere in the distance, something exploded and sent a new shower of stones cascading from the tower above them. 

Aran swayed, knees buckling, giving way to the grip, the embrace, the kiss as his eyes widened, gaze sharpening to present clarity as he focused on Dorian. His arms came up to hold onto the mage, fingers digging into the muscles of the man’s back. “Dorian-“ he gasped as a massive golden pillar fell across the dais behind them, crashing through empty shelves. “What are you doing here?” The inflamed tapestries changed from Andraste’s March, to dragons winging into the sky, to patterns of knotted silk.

 _He can’t help you. I will see more._ Envy’s voice pressed in around them, foreign and strange in the midst of the chaos. _Betrayed allies will curse your name. Like the first Inquisition, you will bring blood and ruin and fear._

“I’m here to rescue you,” Dorian cradled Aran’s narrow shoulders in his palms. “Apparently, from yourself. So that you can rescue me. Or something to that effect.”

“What?” Aran breathed against him, searching his eyes, “Rescue you from what?”

“This, to begin with. This is quite a mess; you weren’t overstating that. There was a fairly pretty place with a shack and some cliffs. We could go back there.”

 _Like the first magisters to step beyond the Veil, you will destroy everything you touch_. _Blacken everything that is gilded. Decay what is most filled with life._

“Oh, do shut up,” Dorian muttered.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Not you.”

“Then who are you talking to?” Aran asked, peering up at the ceiling as the wooden boards holding it together began to smolder and crack.

“A very irritating, very minor demon has become infatuated with me. Surprise, surprise.”

“You’re possessed?” Aran asked, his hold on Dorian tightening.

“Don’t be absurd. I am a fully-ranked Enchanter of the Minrathous Circle _and_ a member of the Circle of Vyrantium. _Possessed,_ ” he muttered derisively. “I’m insulted.”

“You’re the one who brought up demons.”

“I did, didn’t I? Let's talk about that. Somewhere a little less atmospheric, if you please,” Dorian lifted his brows. 

“How?”

“Whatever you do, don’t think of water.”

“Water?” Aran asked, confused.

“Venhedis,” Dorian shut his eyes and took a deep breath.

Ice cold. 

Aran dragged himself out of the lake atop Dorian, grinning furiously.

The rogue paused. Looked up. “This… wait, this isn’t…”

“Lake Calenhad,” Dorian wrung out his sleeve, smelling the scent of his own skin as though it were everywhere. Curiously, he watched as the scene unfolded along with his robe. “You really do remember events with a startling level of clarity, don’t you?”

“When I can.” Aran frowned. “What’s… _are_ we in the Fade?”

“We are in your mind, at the moment. Focus on me.”

“That’s easy.” He rolled to the side and climbed up to sit on a rock wall along side Dorian as the two of them made love on the docks in the view of the stars. “We’re good at that.” He exhaled shakily, tilting his head to the side thoughtfully.

“Yes.” Dorian wrapped an arm around Aran, kissing his temple. 

“Why are we in my mind?”

“I told you. Demon.”

“Am _I_ possessed?”

Stones stacked around them, building his little nook in the basement of Skyhold. The desk. The shelves. Dorian holding him down while he screamed. In pain. Then pleasure. Then more and more of the same, throughout the room.

“No. It wants to become me, apparently.” 

“Well, I can’t blame it for that. Then it can just spend all day standing in front of mirrors. In rooms full of your portraits. And sculptures.”

Dorian chuckled, “I told you: no statuary.” 

“Right. Right.” They were quiet for a time, holding each other.

Their bodies catapulted from surface to surface, a dozen different indulgences colliding in one mind’s eye.

Aran tucked his tongue between his teeth, “Really, though. We’re really, _really_ good at that.”

“Practice makes perfect, as they say.”

Aran snorted. “Someone will come for us, right? Haven’s rife with mages.”

“Cole says no time is passing outside. We’re here, in our heads, until we get out.”

“I’m beginning to take real issue with Time. If I ever meet the blighter face to face, I might just give him a swift punch up the bracket.” Aran tore his gaze away from them, “Cole’s here?”

“He seems to have trouble tracking you through your memories.”

Trees sprang up around them. In the low light, he pressed his spine to the trunk of a tree and readied a dagger as a series of torches marched past along a trail a few feet away.

“He doesn’t much like the inside of my head,” Aran sighed.

“I can’t imagine why not. Have you spent any time indoors?” 

A fire roared beneath a stone mantle. On a thick rug in front of it, Aran lay sprawled out with his head pillowed upon the belly the hulking mabari Dorian had met that morning, his fingers tangled in its fur, while the scent of stew swam around them and somewhere out of sight Hawke and Fenris and Varric were engaged in some kind of heated argument, the words barely registering. Aran peered up at him sleepily.

“Better?”

“Much.” Dorian settled down to sit beside him, brushing his fingers through Aran’s hair. “Let’s try to stay a while so that Cole might catch up, yes?”

“I’m not sure how to do that,” Aran yawned, “but I’ll try.”

“That’s all I can ask.”

“Dorian…?”

“Hm?”

“I like you being here.”

“Of course you do.” He stretched out alongside him, resting his cheek on Aran’s shoulder to watch the fire. “Your flames all speak… what is that now? Elvhen?”

“It’s not the flames. It’s her priests.”

“I see.”

“You do not,” Aran laughed.

“Perhaps not entirely.”

“They’re always talking.”

“Always?”

“The Well. The priests. Not fire.”

“You mean to say, even when we’re…”

Aran lifted his brows with a half smile. “Oh, sure.”

“Well, that’s… intrusive.” Dorian kissed his shoulder. “What are they saying?”

Aran shut his eyes. “Something about listening for the crow of a raven or the raving of a crow. Stumbling blind in the dawn light.” He shook his head, “It’s like listening to the echoes from the insides of their heads.” He smirked softly, “And we’re in my head, listening to my echoes. Like a puzzle box.”

“Rather.” 

“Why aren’t we in yours?” Aran rolled his head to eye Dorian, “In your head, I mean. If the demon is after you-“

“It’s safer here.”

Aran frowned, “Well, that’s just patently untrue.”

Dorian sighed, petting Aran’s scrunched eyebrows with his thumb, “You’re too hard on yourself.”

Aran shut his eyes, “You saw what I did.”

Dorian traced the outline of his nose. “Do you know, Chantry boy, I never really understood all the fuss about Kirkwall. It was very fancy building made from stone and wood, rather a preposterous use of funds when you think of the number of things the Chantry could accomplish with them instead. The art was a shame, certainly, but I noticed that the shelves were empty. Where _did_ you put all of the books and scrolls?”

“Darktown.”

“So. You saved the knowledge. And you saved the people. No one died in that fire. No one was injured in it.”

“The ensuing chaos afterwards. The civilians in the streets and on the docks and at the gates. The mages in the Circle. The Templars in a panic. The mages at Dairsmuird who were annulled. The hundreds of people who were murdered or became murderers or were displaced in the Mage-Templar war…” Aran shivered.

The sounds of crashing wood and screams shook the room. The fire roared and lapped at the stones. The floor fell out from under them landing them in a stampede of Kirkwall citizens running, pushing and shoving past each other through the streets. 

”The troubles between mages and Templars and the Chantry had been boiling long before your festival of fire,” Dorian shouted over the chaos. “You might have given them an excuse with your display, not a reason.”

”I knew the excuse I was giving them.”

”It was still their choice to take it.”

”I did this- I did this to-“

“I think not.” Dorian took him by the arms and pulled. 

The training hall was dark and quiet. Smooth black marble everywhere they looked, winking with the tiniest quartz imperfections. 

“It’s like being in the middle of the sky,” Aran murmured, staring.

Dorian smiled. “Quite.” 

“What is this place?” Aran tilted his head back, studying the smooth, curved edges where the walls met the ceiling. 

“Practice hall. One of my academies. Honestly, I can’t remember which. The third? Perhaps the fourth?” Dorian shrugged, “No matter.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Peaceful.”

“That, too.”

“Welcome home, my son.” Halward strolled along the edge of the room, dragging his fingertips across the wall. His curled boots clipped the marble with each step.

“You could at least try to be inventive,” Dorian rolled his eyes, grappling Aran as the fierce dagger of a man growled low in his throat. “None of this is real,” he told him.

“Not yet,” Halward considered them. “You wanted to be him,” his lips curved with dark pleasure. “Oh, for ages, didn’t you? So very, very much. Couldn’t ever get it quite right, could you?” he chided quietly. “I will.”

“Fuck you,” Aran snarled.

“Aran-“

“I heard you. I know it’s a demon,” Aran muttered. “It’s just pissing me off.”

“You are a child, playing at being a man. A follower, playing at being a leader. Juggling your knives like a clown, your rhythm altered by every tune that touches your ears. I will play sweet music for those ears, Herald of Andraste, and I will watch you dance.” Halward’s age melted away, his face changing just barely until he was a stuttering vision of Dorian, clad entirely in gold. “I will be everything you couldn’t. I will make them see.”

“Really, really pissing me off,” Aran gritted his teeth.

“You will open the city and the gods will bow before you and be grateful. The world will tremble and shatter at your feet. The skies will rend and the seas will boil. And you will show the world just what true power means.”

“Are you trying to scare me or convince me?” Dorian asked curiously. “You really should choose a tactic and stick with it. You’ve got my eyes wrong, by the way.”

“Don’t help it,” Aran hissed.

“My dear, do you see the padding in the shoulders of that robe? There is no help for this thing. Poor miserable sod.” The Dorian across from them hissed, baring a mouth of sharp, crooked teeth. “See what I mean?”

_Dismissive. Always better. Always right. Is that the kind of man you are? I will know you._

“Unless you don’t.” Cole strode through one of the walls, moving to Dorian’s side. “You don’t have to.”

_Get out, thing. I am learning._

“Yearning,” Cole corrected.

_Yes. That is here, too. It calls to me._

The walls eroded into cold, damp stone blocks. In the center of the room, the not-quite Dorian walked a circle around a chained woman, his golden robes soaking up blood in his wake. “What do you say to your crimes, heretic?”

“This is a farce,” the woman looked up. Mother Giselle was barely recognizable; her eye puffed, cheek bleeding, cleric’s robes all in tatters. “I demand justice.”

“Then you shall have it,” Dorian’s shadow beamed brightly. “Take her to the gallows.”

“What is happening?” Aran stared.

“Giselle is many things but she is no heretic,” Dorian frowned at the scene. 

“Any who challenge the will of Andraste’s Herald will be corrected. And I am his will. He listens to me, learns from me. What I wish, he supplies. Power. Wealth. Blood. Ah, the taste of the torrent.” It bared blood-stained teeth, moving towards them. “I see you. I know what you are.”

“None of this is real unless you let it be,” Cole said calmly, stepping in front of them. “ _Don’t_ let it be. Go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I’m on [Tumblr](http://oftachancer.tumblr.com/) now! Come say hello!


	2. Chapter 2

Shelves upon shelves of books stretched down an endless aisle, reaching up into dusty rafters high above. Scrolls were piled on every surface. Maps were pinned to the sides of shelves, or rolled and poking out of the top of overstuffed wine barrels. To the sides of the main hall were doors leading further off. As soon as the room stopped spinning, Aran went to the nearest shelf, scanning titles of tomes and tags dangling from the ends of scrolls. 

Dorian touched the shelf, watching him nervously. “I won’t allow it to come to that. If there’s a point where I become a risk to you-“

“You won’t.”

“Aran, that demon isn’t entirely wrong. I’ve seen what this sort of magic does to people-“

“So have I. I’m not worried about you.” Aran pulled a book from the shelf, frowned, put it back. “I’m not offended. I’m not scared.” He scanned the tags. Deossification techniques, Prof. Treveaux. Deodand laws, Nevarra. Dendrophagous insects of the Anderfels. Demulcents and emollient fomentations. Demotic scripts in simplified hieratic writing. Demonolatry in Ancient Tevinter. Demons...

“So you are human.” Dorian's voice nudged at the edge of his concentration.

“Hm?”

“I was beginning to be concerned with the clarity of your memories, but this one, at least has some fuzzy edges to it.”

Aran glanced over his shoulder. “This isn’t a memory. This is… uh… my memory, I guess. How I organize it. Or try to.” He watched Dorian’s gaze sharpen and darken, “What? What’s wrong?”

“You.”

Aran crossed his eyes, “Ah… You’re going to have to narrow that one down. There’s a lot wrong with me.”

“Look at this place.”

Aran squinted around the hall. “Well, this is miscellania. It’s… I don’t usually need most of what’s here, and I’ve never really been here, like this, I mean, I just sort of picture it and-”

“Miscellania,” Dorian repeated. He plucked a book off the shelf nearest him at random. “This is a list of Cassandra’s swords and their descriptions.”

“Must have seemed relevant to something at some point.” Aran shrugged, pulling books off the shelf one after another. “I have to know something about demons other than...” He pulled a scroll off the shelf and frowned at the words: ohmakernoohmakernoohmakerno… “Useless. Why did I even keep this?” He chucked it over his shoulder and the scroll evaporated.

“What are you looking for, exactly?” Dorian asked, following alongside him.

“Something about how to escape one's own head when one is kidnapped by a demon. Mind-napped? Or anything about Envy demons? Or-”

“Did everyone in every world conveniently forget that I have studied spirits?”

“Brandy or wine?”

“Oh, very funny.”

Aran looked up, “Can you get us out of this?”

“Well...” Dorian glanced away, tripping his fingers over the books. “Not yet. But I have a theory.”

A brow winged upwards. “You have a theory for every concept under the sun.”

“Hardly.”

Aran hummed under his breath, scanning the pages of a book on Pride demons, frowned and put it back on the shelf. Pride and Rage, their weaknesses and strengths, how to predict what might be coming through a rift… He didn’t have squat on Envy. The idea of something that could take Dorian’s face, try to take his place, so enraged and terrified him, he couldn’t quite sort through his thoughts on the matter. Which didn’t make finding anything useful any easier. Sighing, he rested his head on the shelf and breathed in the scent of must and parchment, ink and leather. “I’m not having any luck. What’s the theory?” He glanced up, “Dorian?” The hall was empty but for himself and a thousand disorganized memories. “Dorian?” he shouted, panic rising in his chest.

“Over here,” Dorian’s voice echoed back to him. 

Aran hurried through the aisle of shelves towards the wall of doors and paused, peering at the one that was open. “Uh…” he cleared his throat. “What are you doing?”

“What did we say about statuary, Aran?”

Aran winced, crossing the threshold labeled ‘Dorian’. 

* * *

The study was lined with shelves again, though these were neatly arranged and alphabetized. Portraits and sculptures filled the available spaces. A book full of fabric swatches lay open on the desk in the corner. Dorian gazed up at a larger than life marble rendering of himself, exacting in detail down to the smallest scars. He shook his head, turning a slow circle in the center of the room. So many images of him by whole and in parts. Certain parts especially, but that wasn’t surprising. It was Aran, after all; he had a well-established preoccupation with arms and arses. Yet there were also sketches of his face, tender little portraits of his nose and his chin. The outline of his ear. The curve of his mustache. The way he slept with his fingertips touching his neck. Oh, some of it, like the statue he was staring at, was an ode to him in his most perfect state: proud and tall and powerful and exquisite from every angle. But there were moments of imperfection here, too, tended just as lovingly. Books full of descriptions: the smell of his skin, the crease of his brow when he was starting to get a headache, the feel of the inside of his elbows, the way he watched Cole when he thought Aran wasn’t paying attention... And more than that, books full of their conversations. Things Aran had evidently overheard him saying and carefully filed away. Disagreements and arguments, with notations in the margins where Aran had clearly returned to them, reconsidering his positions… Journals full of thoughts and hopes and wishes he hadn’t even touched the surface of. And more than all of that, the space itself felt… tended. Organized. Dusted. Wood polished to a shine. There was time here. Time and tenderness.

Aran’s voice shouting his name drew his attention back to the door and it took him two tries to get his voice to come out louder than a whisper, “Over here!” He put down the worn journal he’d been reading and returned to the sculpture as Aran came rushing to the doorway.

“What are you doing?”

“What did we say about statuary, Aran?” he asked, trying for glib, trying for normal. Anything to conceal the racing of his heart, the ache of his flesh, the rising breathlessness.

“I can have what I want in my head…” Aran cleared his throat. “Can we not be in here?”

“I don’t think I have much of a choice,” Dorian murmured, peering up at his own face. 

“It’s private.”

Dorian turned to study him. “You’re blushing.”

“I’m not.”

“...you are. Why?”

“Because this isn’t something you were supposed to see.”

“No?” Dorian frowned, feeling his stomach attempting to climb into his lungs. “Do you _want_ me to go?”

“No! I just… I didn’t think you’d… um… it’s probably just better if we… how long have you been here?”

“Not long enough.” And Dorian didn’t want to leave. He wanted to read all of the books. Touch every page and cloth and frame. Taste and smell the contents of every little vial, if only to feel more clearly what he meant to this man. The small slip of paper with the words ‘I love you’ in fresh ink on the desk; the resonance of his own voice and the swell of Aran’s emotions that had flooded his senses when he’d touched it. Any doubts he’d had, any stray threads of jealousy or insecurity about the other men in Aran’s life, dissolved in this room. How had he failed to see- failed to know how much, how deeply, how uniquely- Dorian looked to Aran, restlessly waiting in the doorway. “You love me.”

“Aye. I’ve said as much,” the fellow wrinkled his nose. His ears were bright red. 

Tiny perfect champagne bubbles were rising through him, from the tips of his toes up into his heart. Dorian stifled pleased, glee-filled laughter that would most certainly be misinterpreted. Then likely memorized and stored _here_. And perhaps thought of later. Maker, this man. This miracle. He blinked the increasing damp from his eyes and crossed the room to catch Aran’s hand, bringing the rogue’s long, nimble fingers to his lips. Aran’s gaze flicked to him, shy and startled, and Dorian buried his face in the man’s palm. Cautious fingers brushed his hair over the back of his ear. 

“Dorian?” Aran asked softly. “Is it too much? It is, isn’t it?”

Dorian smiled against his palm. 

“I’m sorry- Damn it all. Why- I mean, why did you have to-”

“It had my name on it, like a present.”

“I can’t help it. Just… forget you saw this. Okay? Cole can help. When we get out of this, we can go back to how it was before- it was good, wasn’t it? You were happy and you said-“

“Aran.” Dorian peered through the fellow’s fingers, forming the words against his palm. “Like a gift.” 

Aran blinked. “A… gift.”

“Yes.”

“You’re… not upset. You’re…” He breathed unsteady, “You’re okay with this?”

Dorian’s lips twitched. “You have a book of my smells.”

“Oh.”

“It’s adorable.”

Aran rolled his eyes, ducking his head. “Maker, you’re going to be insufferable now, aren’t you.”

“Not to mention some of the accessories I found in those desk drawers.” His smile widened, “I didn’t know you were paying that close of attention to… I am _fascinated_ by this place.”

“Of course you are. It’s about you.”

“You _love_ me,” Dorian repeated, wonder-filled.

“Obviously,” he bit his lip. “Let’s go.”

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I am the result of generations of careful breeding, after all.” 

“Gods above and below-“

“You love me so blighted much it…” he shut his eyes, remembering the words he’d read, “‘overtakes you like the sea’.”

“Private. _Private_ thoughts. Private-“

“Aran, were it possible, I would crawl, bleeding, into the temple of your eyes and live inside of you forever.” Aran paused, swallowed. His pulse in his palm, beneath Dorian’s lips, leapt, and Dorian nuzzled that reckless thrum. “I would feast upon your thoughts, listen to the inner workings of your mind, all your endless clockwork concertos, and swim within your currents like an eel.”

Aran shivered, staring. 

“Amatus.” Dorian kissed his fingertips one by one, “My Amatus.”

“Oh...” he swallowed again, his voice cracking, “Dorian-“

“Yes.” He smiled, pulling Aran into the room with him and dragging him down onto the floor. “I do. Yes. I will. Yes.”

* * *

“No more wandering off,” Aran mumbled from the floor, every muscle in his body liquid in the wake of Dorian’s steady, concerted assault on his person.

“Of course not. I like it here in your library of memory.” 

“Right. Well. Get your own.”

“I have. I’ve got you,” Dorian cupped Aran’s ass and squeezed, beaming. 

”Incorrigible.” Aran groaned at the contact, shivering as Dorian’s fingers worked their way up his back. “A demon is trying to take your place. We are trapped in our heads.”

“I know! Who knew it could be so delightful?” Dorian kissed his shoulder and stood up, wandering around the room. He paused beside a brass sculpture of his arse and stopped, peering over his shoulder to compare the two. “Your eye for detail truly is astounding.”

Aran covered his face with his hand.

“Aran.”

“Hm?” He allowed his fingers to be peeled apart and found himself the recipient of Dorian’s warm, pleased gaze. Aran dabbed at his lower lip with his tongue. “I’m glad you’re happy.”

“I am.” 

“We’re still in very deep shit.”

“Certainly.” Dorian kissed the back of his shoulder. “It is bewildering to me that you can still feel all of this, even after...”

“What?” Aran lifted his cheek from the floor, pillowing it on his hands. “You’re still thinking about the blood magic.”

“Yes. I fear I will continue to do so for quite some time.”

“I understand.” Aran nodded, “It’s personal.”

“It’s more than that. It’s such an easy, simple method of empowering oneself. A cheat. It makes you stronger for a moment, weaker for a lifetime, but once you know it’s there… the shortcut… suddenly it seems like the answer to everything. The cleanest solution to every obstacle, never mind all the dastardly consequences.” Dorian pressed his cheek to Aran’s back, “Yes. It’s personal.”

“So don’t do it again. We’ll find another way.”

“What if there isn’t another way?”

Aran shut his eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t know enough about it. We’ll learn more. We’ll figure it out.”

“And if we can’t before the next time you travel?”

“Then you’ll have my blood, Dorian. As many times as you need it.”

“And that’s just fine with you.”

“Yes.”

“Because you would do anything I asked.”

Aran cracked an eye open, craning his neck up to peer at Dorian’s worried expression over his shoulder. “ _Almost_ anything. Within reason.”

“But reason, for you, includes being a willing sacrifice.”

“I’d really prefer it if you didn’t kill me in the process, but sure.”

“This isn’t a joke.”

“I know.” Aran flattened out on the floor, reaching an arm back to cradle Dorian against him. “I know. Sorry. It’s just… It seems like… Okay. I don’t like using poison. I think it’s cheating. And it’s a hard thing to come back from. You’re in a fight, you cut someone, they’ll die. You can’t just injure them or disarm them, with something like that. You get rid of your options. You have to go into that fight knowing that you’re going to kill whoever you cut. But. It’s a tool. So I don’t carry poison with me all the time. I barely use it. But I know how. I know that I can and I will, if I need to. And I’m not a mage, so this means fuck all, I’m sure, but I feel like blood magic is sort of the same. It gets a bad rap because people have used it indiscriminately, and poorly. But if you understand it and use it sparingly and wisely…” he shrugged. “I don’t think it’s the worst thing a person can do. I know it doesn’t make you a monster. I’m glad you’re here, for instance, and you wouldn’t be, were it not for that. So it’s not all bad.” He listened to Dorian breathe for a few minutes. “Was that the wrong answer?”

“I’m not certain there’s a right or wrong answer.”

“Fair enough.” Aran moaned softly as Dorian’s fingers began a procession up the back of his neck and into his hair. “That feels really good.”

“I appreciate your mind.”

Aran smiled. “I appreciate you appreciating it.”

“Do you have one of these rooms for Cole?”

”Yes.”

“What about the Archon?”

“Dorian...” Aran sat up slowly, looking at his hands, “Why are you asking about this?” 

“I’m not being petty. I’m over that now. I truly, honestly, want to know.”

“You want to know,” Aran repeated hesitantly.

“I do.”

“Since when?” 

“Since I realized belatedly that your heart doesn’t have a finite amount of love residing in it. Rather incredible, that.” Dorian tucked a knee up to his chin, tracing his fingers down Aran’s arm. “And having realized that, I discovered that I am inordinately curious about the other recipients of your affection.”

“Curious.”

“Yes.” Dorian lifted his brows. “Can I be curious?”

“Sure. Of course. Right _now_ seems like a right poor choice for it, is all.”

“Right now is the perfect time! When else will I actually be able to see them, through your eyes?”

“Oh, fuck no,” Aran shivered with nervous energy. “That’s a bad idea.” 

“I want to see them. I want to understand. To feel what they bring to your life. It’s the closest I may ever come to meeting them. I want to meet the men who make you feel the way that you make me feel.”

Aran hesitated, “Do you know how much I hate keeping things from you?”

“Quite a lot.” Dorian smiled encouragingly. “And I know you wanted to tell me about them before and I reacted… unfavorably.”

“Unfavorably? You were all kinds of pissed off. And that’s fine,” he hurried to add. “You get to feel how you feel. But we agreed that you’d be happier not knowing more than you absolutely had to, for… figuring out the spell.”

“We did.”

“So this would be the opposite of that.”

“I know.”

Aran tucked his forehead to his knee. “We have to get out of my head.”

“Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it?” Dorian rested his foot atop Aran’s, patting it. “So long as we're in here, Envy has to put quite a lot more effort into bothering me. You’ll notice that we haven’t heard a peep out of it since we exited the realm of it’s creation in my mind. And since we have to be here anyway… I think we should take advantage of the unique opportunity we’re presented with.” 

Aran studied their toes. “You’re sure.”

“Yes.”

“You want to know.” Aran exhaled slowly. “...yes, I sometimes think about him.”

“And the Orlesian Magister?”

“Yes.”

“Your Valo-Kas?”

The room tilted, the scent of charred wood overtaking the subtle parchment and ink, and they fell headlong into a field of smoke and disarray.


	3. Chapter 3

The smoke was so thick it cloaked them in charcoal dust and ash; Dorian could taste it, feel the grit collecting on his tongue and in his throat, stinging and hot. He coughed, clutching his chest, sinking to his knees in an attempt to find air to breathe. There was nothing to see in the darkness of the memory, except for the fire that flashed and flickered orange and red. Close. Too close. The ash stung his face. The aching, gut-churning screaming, tore at his heart and head; it made him want to run, or scream himself, but he managed - barely - to recall that 

this was not real. Nor was it his memory. Nor his mind. And remembering drew him out and back, gave him space to breathe, to collect, to observe… 

Aran was on the ground, his hands pressed to a man’s stomach attempting to press insides back where they belonged as he screamed and screamed. The sharp hook that had done the damage lay nearby, still dripping with gore, and nearby, past the sound of Aran’s grief and horror, Dorian could hear the clash of blades and the infuriated familiar roar of the Iron Bull. A sickening crunch and thump and the qunari emerged from the smoke, slick with fresh blood, dropping to his knees across from Aran. 

“I can’t- I can’t- he won’t stop bleeding-“ Aran shook, stammered.

The Iron Bull leaned close to the injured man’s face. A face Aran had been concentrating on _not_ looking at, not acknowledging, even as he tried to fix what couldn’t not be fixed. Smoke-stained, scorched, a too-familiar jaw and chin and nose. The qunari closed Dorian’s eyes with his palm, pressing his forehead to his, “I’m sorry, Kadan.”

“Help me!” Aran shouted, frantic, resolved against reality.

“He’s gone.”

“No!”

“He’s dead, Meraad.” The Iron Bull smoothed Dorian’s hair from his forehead; his hand trembled. He shut his eyes, exhaled, and turned to Aran. He gripped Aran’s shoulder, shaking him so hard that the rogue’s teeth rattled. “You need to run.”

Aran quivered like a plucked string, rigid and terrified, but aware. He looked at his hands, tears rolling hot down his cheeks, and shuddered, shaking his head. “I’m not leaving him. I’m not leaving _you_.”

“They will kill you.” Simple. Quiet. 

“Not before I kill a few of them,” Aran gnashed his teeth, lip curling. 

“Run. Now.”

“I’m not _leaving_ you.” Aran snarled, grappling the qunari over the fallen man between them. They stared at each other, grief-bloodied and war-beaten, bloody hands grasping each other’s shoulders. Nearby, horses screamed, men shouted, women roared, explosions pounded the earth. 

The Iron Bull hissed low. “You die, too, and I’ll kill you.”

Aran nodded stiffly, croaked, “Deal.”

“We’ll take him away from here,” the Iron Bull said grimly. 

Dorian touched Aran’s shoulder and the rogue turned blindly as the memory continued on without him. 

They wrapped the broken body as best they could and the qunari collected it tenderly into his arms, carrying it against his chest as Aran kept sharp, sorrow-shredded eyes peeled, bloody, white-knuckled hands gripping his daggers. 

In Dorian’s arms, Aran wept with the whole of himself and it was all Dorian could do to simply hold him. 

Out of his mind. 

Dorian shut his eyes and willed them out. So it hadn’t been a hallucination of poison. ‘You’re alive,’ he’d said. But that Dorian that he had loved wasn’t anymore. Fresh wounds for his beloved. He kissed Aran’s hair, holding him.

The war faded like fog and they were left on a hillside near the sea, suntouched and surrounded by flowers. 

“I’m so sorry, Amatus,” he whispered and allowed the man’s grief to steam his shoulder. 

“I can’t-“ Aran gasped, “I can’t-“

“I know.” He cupped the back of his neck and stayed with him. Let him feel and writhe and gasp and scream the loss of his love. And stared at the remembered ocean to let himself finally feel the grief he’d been patiently avoiding. 

It spread like a slow bruise out from his heart to make every part of him ache. This was the curse, not the time or the distance, but the holding of a man who loved and lit and lingered… knowing that he’d already lost him. 

No.

He hadn’t. 

Not yet. He wouldn’t believe that. They were an aberration now, both of them together, here, like this, and they would… they would…

Was it getting darker? 

Walls climbed from the ground around them, pinning them in to a small, cold space. Gritting his teeth, he swiped a hand over his face, dragging at wet tracks with his thumb, while bars and chains descended.

_I’ve seen enough of this. There are other things I need to learn._

“Well, you can fuck right off. How’s that for your education?”

 _Hiding grief behind anger. Lying to the ones you claim to love. I see the kind of man you are,_ the voice pulsed into his mind as slick and pulpy as crushed, overripe peaches. _I will know you._

“You’re a pestering insect,” he clipped.

“I’m trying,” Aran wound their fingers together. He sounded like he’d been burned from the inside out, scorched and raw. “It’s not working.”

“That’s all right. We’re fine. There’s nothing it can do to us.”

His shadow strolled inside as the wall closed in behind him. 

Cullen slammed against the bars closest to them, gripping the steel in his palms, “Is it my turn to be branded a traitor for questioning what we have become? I deserve it for letting him turn the Inquisition into a butcher’s pit. Or should I say, for letting you. We should have known from the beginning that you were nothing but a snake, manipulating him.”

Dorian held on tight as Aran shuddered, rocking in his arms, whispering to himself.

“It’s dark here, but it isn’t real. You’ve survived worse,” Cole’s voice descended to them; petals falling from a dogwood branch. “Think of chess, think of sparks. Make him follow. You’re both more you there than you are Envy, and that tires it out.”

“Sparks,” Aran squeezed his eyes shut. “Sparks, Sparks, Sparks…”

Ivy climbed the walls around them, sunlight bloomed overhead. Beneath a trellis of flowers, he frowned over a chessboard across from a world-weary man in an Orlesian mask. He reached across the table and the man in the mask tsked softly. 

“What?” Aran asked, “You don’t like losing?”

The lips beneath the metal mustache curved ironically. “You'll be checkmated in six moves if you do that.” Dorian’s voice. But not. Laconic. 

“No… oh. Damn.”

“Hm.” 

Aran glanced up, “You don’t have to help me, you know.”

“I’m bored and you’re a terrible bard,” the Tevinter muttered, “maybe this will keep you alive another day or two.”

“You’re going soft?”

“Not at all. I’m just tired of the same old ‘haha, I will stab you’ and ‘oh ho, I have poisoned your wine’ and ‘tee hee, I will sell your secrets to the highest bidder if you don’t…’ something or other.” He swirled his wine in his cup. 

“‘Tee hee’?”

“It surprised me as well.” 

“Gaspard’s not so much into the twirling mustache thing,” Aran shrugged.

“So I see. Is that part of his game? Lulling his targets into complacency with friendly chats?”

“You think you’re a target?”

“Naturally, dreadful foreigners that we are.”

“I can’t just be here because I enjoy your company?”

The masked man smirked, “No.”

“What do you think he wants out of you?”

“Connections to the Imperium, obviously. Perhaps a few competent mages to combat the imbeciles in the Southern Chantry Circles. Artifacts. Wealth. Passable conversation.”

“Huh.” Aran lifted his mask, itching his brow. “I can ask him for you if you’d like. See if he wants any of those things. Did you have something you were looking for in return?”

“Aren’t you supposed to know?”

“I don’t.”

“You’re not very good at the Game are you?”

“It’s tiresome.” Aran set the mask back against his face. “I could rifle through your desk if you’d prefer. Intercept some correspondence. Sounds like a lot of work. I’d rather lose at chess and have you tell me.”

“I’ll make a list of demands, shall I?”

“That’d be nice. Thank you.” Aran moved a piece on the board, standing. “I’ll come ‘round same time next week, if that suits?”

“What about the game?”

Aran shrugged, “You were always going to win this one. Other games, I’ll wager I could checkmate you, though. Or at the very least king you.” He watched Dorian’s lips flex in the hint of amusement, then wandered away with the mark dangling from his fingertips. “Until then.”

“My Orlesian counterpart, I take it?” Dorian asked quietly.

“Yes.”

“He seems…”

“Lonely.”

“I was going to say pompous.”

Aran laughed weakly.

The garden melted into another, sprawling and extensive, rippling with flowers and topiaries. Overhead, the stars warred with explosions of light and color. Everywhere he looked, there were men and women in the height of finery. Colors clashing, fabrics sneering at one another. Aran sat on the side of a small pool, fingers catching the splash from a fountain, watching the people bend and weave. Watching the fireworks burn and sizzle. Or was it the other way ‘round? 

“Knight to c-6.”

Aran smiled, watching a torrent of sparks become a dragon overhead. “Pawn to d-6.”

“I’ll take that.”

He glanced over his shoulder to find Dorian in full black robes, his mask a golden dragon with glinting emeralds. “Knight to e-4.”

“Chanter to f-5.”

“Knight to g-3.”

“Chanter to e-6.” Dorian bowed his head as a pair of ladies ruffled past. “You’re getting marginally better at this.”

“I studied.”

“Look at you, improving yourself. Soon you won’t even have to run about delivering messages at all. Then what will you do with yourself?”

“Find a boat that floats. Collect some good books. Fish.”

“Dull.”

“Maybe,” Aran laughed. “Knight to f-3.” 

“You played chess.”

“A lot of chess.” Aran nodded, watching them stand there in the midst of the crowd, trading barbs and moves. “What’s the matter? You asked to see them.”

“I was expecting more… sweat,” Dorian admitted. 

Aran tucked his head under Dorian’s chin. “Sweat, huh?” He shut his eyes. “Okay. Let’s think of sweat then. Anything but blood.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thanks to [suliswrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suliswrites/pseuds/suliswrites) for her support and insight in completing this chapter! Check out her Lumione work here on Ao3!

  
  
  
The air was thick as honey melting from the comb, so rich and lingering that he could taste it on his tongue, feel it filling his nostrils as he breathed shallowly. There were points of cool, soft water where his fingers trailed. The sound of a fountain nearby. Music in the distance; a hip harp, somewhere. The light trill of bells in a stifling wind. His eyes cracked open, unveiling a thickly vined garden, trellises filled with blooming flowers that he couldn’t smell past the damned heat. It was too hot, even to sweat. The shade was little reprieve, though at least he wasn’t burning. He submerged his hand in the long, shallow pool to his side and considered rolling into it. But there were people around, chatting and moving in serpentine patterns around and past each other. Reeds in a firestorm, all of them waiting to see who might catch fire; careful not to get caught, but wanting to be close enough to watch. 

“Salutations, my favorite crocodile.”

Aran’s gaze shifted barely to the man ducking beneath the draped awning to join him; dark skin, rich and smooth and damp in the heat, smoldering eyes and a pair of full, smirking lips. Rilienus dropped his robe off to the side as though it were a scrap of towel rather than a priceless piece of artistry and collapsed onto the pillows at his side, lifting a hand to casually trail just over Aran’s skin. “Don’t touch me. It’s too hot,” he breathed, sluggish. 

“Oh, yes? Let’s see…” 

Aran squinted an eye open to watch Rilienus lean past him, wiggling his fingers gently over the water of the fountain. Slowly, a thread’s width of water curled towards his fingers like a thin, eager snake, twisting up and around his fingers and freezing as it touched his skin. He guided the ice to Aran’s forehead and touched him lightly, drawing lazy patterns on his brow and face in chilly, melting lines, and Aran moaned appreciatively. “Mother of mercy, where have you been all day?”

“Chambers. Matters of state. Politics. Blah blah blah,” Rilienus chuckled. “All the while, you’ve been scaring the peons.”

“I’ve been laying here trying not to die.”

“A terrifying visage, apparently.” His fingers wound down Aran’s neck, making him arch. “Very useful, that. Shall we move you to the east garden to endure the heat tomorrow?”

“To be terrifying?”

“Precisely.” Rilienus’ fingers tripped down the centerline of his torso. “We’ve a delegation from Qarinus who would do well to enter negotiations a trifle off balance.” 

“If I’m going to melt anyway, I might as well melt on display.”

“Wonderful.” 

“Ril?”

“Hmmm?” the man purred.

“Can you make more of the ice?”

The warm chuckle sent shivers through his skin. “As my lord commands,” he murmured.

Dorian shivered along with him. “Maker.”

“I know,” Aran murmured. “I know.”

“Yes, but…”

“I know.”

“The articulation of the energy is so precise…” Dorian breathed.

“All right,” Aran glanced at him. “Maybe I didn’t know.”

“Paper thin strands of an existing organic! Not a summon from the Fade, but a _manipulation-_ There are only a handful of mages who can manage precision like that. Then again, he is an evoker, but still, to watch him work again is… beautiful.”

Aran smiled.

“What?”

“I adore you. I adore your mind. I adore all the pieces that come together to make you you.” Aran sat up. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Where to next? Another of your-“

“No, love. Let’s get out of here.” Aran lifted his brows.

“...It’s cold outside.”

He chuckled. “That’s true. We’ll get you better winter clothes, okay?”

“Very well,” he sighed. “Back to research, then?”

Aran nodded seriously. “Back to research. And I think I can find a better collection.”

There were benefits to Chantry life, Aran reminded himself as he pushed an empty handcart through the courtyard. It was quiet, for one. The wheels of the cart rattled over the cobblestones, jarring his senses. That was what the young nobles who came to study always said first, when explaining what they loved about the University. Quiet. Peaceful. A quiet, peaceful bastion of knowledge in the north. Sometimes he wondered just how noisy their homes were. The third set of morning bells warned him that soon there would be a flurry of novices hurrying for their morning classes. Fondly, he remembered the days he hadn’t had to roll out of bed until third bells. Ages past. 

He was nineteen. Ancient, insofar as he was concerned. The University of Starkhaven was a far sight from the Ostwick Chantry where he’d begun his journey almost a decade before. The impenetrable stronghold may have only been six days ride away, but it might as well have been as many years. He eyed the high steeple of the Chantry’s main hall of worship, remembering the graceful bell towers that had rung out over the seaside cliffs of his childhood. Whales and dolphins cavorting in the waves. The swarm of fishing vessels that cast out to sea each morning. 

He left the cart to pry open the heavy door to the library, returning to drag the cart through behind him. Outside, novices and university students were beginning their morning rush, their chatter rising like territorial blue jays and opinionated sparrows. He pulled the door shut behind him and stood for a moment in the muffled hall. In all honesty, it was the library that made it all worthwhile. Books and scrolls from every corner of Thedas, even ones that had been banned at the Chantry at home. Literature. Poetry. Histories. And they were all his.

Well, they were the Chantry’s, and the University’s. And Archivist Welkin’s, of course. But as he was one of the Archivist’s select few apprentices, they were _essentially_ his. Close enough. 

He rolled down the aisle between the tall shelves, breathing in the invigorating scent of parchment and ink. There were so many varieties of both and he’d come to be able to recognize where a translation had been written based on those scents. Fermented wine from Orlais. A thick, sour sap from the Dalish of the northern Marches. Burnt bones from Nevarra. Soot and glue from Tevinter. Squid ink from his coastal birthplace, carrying hints from the sea. And all the herbs and vegetable powders that went into coloring all those inks of origin, each carrying their own inherent signature.

“Join me in Heaven and sorrow no more.”

Aran slanted a glance out of the corner of his eye, pausing in the act of collecting the books from the list Welkin had given him. “Dashed cheeky,” he laughed despite himself, the sound echoing hollowly against the high rafters. 

“If they but listen, I shall return.” 

Aran narrowed his eyes, biting his tongue between his teeth as he turned back to the shelf, lowering his voice, “Sure, an’ that’s what you said last time. But you weren’t the one picking leaves out your hair the next morning. Are you aware of how high up in that tower your cell is? And how far down that trellis I had to climb? It’s a wonder I didn’t break my neck.”

“Victory! Sweet song rising from the lips of the vanquishers.” Chanter Dermot circled around behind him to peer oh, so innocently over his shoulder at the list. 

Aran snorted softly, carefully adding a tome on solar meditations to his cart and rolling off down the aisle.

“All heads bow. All knees bend.” 

Damn, but he had a nice voice. Aran bit his tongue to keep his expression blank. 

“By the Maker’s will, I decree Harmony in all things.” 

And merry emerald eyes. And a nice mop of bright red hair that Aran had very kindly managed not to tear out by the roots. He rolled his eyes and paused the cart again, standing in the shadows of the shelves to feel the Chanter’s melodious whisper against the back of his neck. 

“Let Balance be restored and the world given eternal life.”

“Aye, fine. I forgive you,” he turned, lifting a lofty brow, “for shoving me out a window. You’re lucky you’ve got such pretty words.”

Dermot grinned, chastised and unrepentant. 

“I said ‘fine’.” Aran stifled a laugh as he was nudged deeper into the shadows and kissed, oh, sweetly, only opening his eyes again when he felt a roll of parchment pressed into his hand. He lifted the parchment to his nose, peering at Dermot over the top of it, as he sniffed it. Pressed wheat. Lamp black and honey. Crushed cornflower petals. Poetry from a Chanter? What would that be, more of the same? “What’s this then?” He glanced down, unfurling the parchment, and found… himself. Framed by sunlight from the casement he’d been summarily encouraged out of not a few hours later. His lips quirked as he absorbed the gently drawn mirror, remembering the taste of the wine and the bits of honeycomb that had tangled sweetly on their tongues. Of course, the drawing did him more justice than he deserved. He almost looked… pretty. It wasn’t true, obviously, but looking at the lines and colors Dermot had wrought, he could almost believe it.

“The Maker said: ‘To you, My second-born, I grant this gift: In your heart shall burn An unquenchable flame All-consuming, and never satisfied. From the Fade I crafted you, And to the Fade you shall return Each night in dreams That you may always remember Me." 

“Thank you,” Aran whispered, slipping the portrait into a dissertation on the uses of moss. 

“And the stars stood still, the winds did quiet, and all animals of earth and air held their breath.” Dermot thumbed his chin gently. “We are alike in sorrow, sculptor and clay, Comforting each other in our art.”

“I can’t, I’ve got work. Can’t gad about quoting the Chant all day like some.” Aran snickered at Dermot’s feigned chagrin. Perhaps not entirely feigned. “Ninth bells, the willow past the herb garden,” he glanced at the leather binding and the wing of parchment that stood out from its pages. “Aye?”

“Trembling, I step forward, In darkness enveloped.”

He ducked his head, twitching the edge of the portrait with his fingers, fighting a blush. “Well.” He shifted from foot to foot, “See you then.” He darted a kiss upon the Chanter’s lips and rolled his cart off down the aisle, feeling the man’s gaze follow him as he went. 

Oh, he’d make him tremble all right. No doubt about that. 

From his place at the long table in the center aisle, Dorian watched Aran wander through his memory, chin resting on his fist. “The outright _lies_ they told us about the southern Chantry. They should be ashamed.”

“It wasn’t all like that.”

“Of course not. If it had been, I imagine Chantry histories would outsell Varric’s tales.”

Aran laughed, perching on the table at Dorian’s side. His fingers inched across the aged oak, nudging, then twining with Dorian’s. “Maybe I’ll show you the scene in the tower then,” he winked.

“Maybe you should.” Dorian murmured, “I wish we could stay here for a while. You seemed happy.”

“I’m happy right now.”

Dorian glanced up at him. “I should hope so. You are in my presence, after all. In fact, you should be more than happy. Overjoyed. Honored, even.”

“Those, too,” Aran agreed readily. “Did you find anything useful here?”

Dorian glanced down at the books laid out before him. “Yes. Useful. And also dreadfully disconcerting.”

“Shit.” Aran leaned on the table, “What?”

“‘Solas frowned, turning to look at the Tevinter out of the corner of his eye. There was more there, more than he’d thought. Perhaps he’d been too hasty in his judgement. Perhaps there was more to the mage than he’d-‘“ 

Aran slammed the cover of the book closed. “You were supposed to be researching demons.”

“I was! Apparently, I was - at one time in your mind’s eye - so thoroughly out of control via what I can only imagine must have been possession that I would…” he uttered a gagging noise in the back of his throat. “With- with that-“

Aran rolled his eyes, “Look. People think about things when they’re alone. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Have you _seen_ what he _wears_? There’s just a jawbone- hanging around his neck- all the time. For no reason! I am a _necromancer,_ Aran; the dead are my specialty, yet even I find that incredibly off-putting. That’s not to mention his tailoring, or lack thereof!” Dorian proclaimed. “Or his desperate need of a pedicure. Or his atrocious attitude. We _all_ know about the Fade, Solas. You needn’t act as though you’re the one who invented it!”

Aran scrubbed his hands over his face, “Okay, aside from being horrified by things I am ashamed to know have stayed in my head, did you find anything useful?”

“Yes. I did.” Dorian stood up. “Useful for getting out of here. And useful, I think, for our other predicament, as well.” 

“Great. So what’s the plan?”

“First,” Dorian held up a finger. “Tell me something.”

“No, you never slept with Solas.”

“Oh!” Dorian pressed his fingers to his chest, shuddering with renewed dismay, “Thank the Maker! I hadn’t even realized that was something I needed to be concerned about!”

“Oh… sorry, then-“

“I’m going to have nightmares about this.”

“What were you going to ask?”

“I’ve quite lost my train of thought. What was it? Oh.” Dorian cleared his throat, “How was the willow in the end? Was it everything you were hoping for?” 

Aran shrugged. “Never went. After I delivered my books to Welkin, I learned I was leaving to record the Conclave. And then… well, you know the rest.” 

Dorian sighed, squeezing his fingers. “Poor Dermot. The heartbreak.”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Aran shook his head. 

“Oh, certainly, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t miss you.” Dorian called the portrait to his hands, admiring it thoughtfully, “You are handsome, you know.”

Aran squinted. “Was. Maybe.”

Dorian nudged him backwards through the table, through tendrils of fog and reaching memories until he was backed against the base of an ancient willow tree. The long branches sang in the evening breeze, thousands of dewed leaves glittering jewels in the moonlight. “Are,” he reiterated, tilting Aran’s head back. 

And for a moment, looking at the warmth in Dorian’s eyes and feeling the flutter of his own heart as those strong, ringed fingers brushed up his neck to tangle in his hair… he could almost believe it. 

“Aran.”

“That’s my name.”

“Do you still believe yourself to be a monster?”

Aran swallowed uneasily. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about my need for you to be kinder to yourself.”

“Why?” Aran asked quietly. “Everyone else makes excuses for me. The least I can do is not make them for myself.”

“Let’s consider your question. Why would I want you to be kinder to this man?” Dorian asked against his neck. “Because it hurts him when you aren’t and I don’t like to see him hurt. I need him, you see. He loves me more than I thought possible, and I love him. Love makes us strong; that’s what he told me. Can you imagine the audacity? Perhaps it can make us strong enough to love ourselves in addition to each other.” 

Aran pressed his cheek against Dorian’s hair, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Tell me truly. Would you want me to run around hating myself for the things I’ve done?”

“That isn’t fair.”

“Why isn’t it?”

“Because,” Aran trembled, exasperated, “you are a good person.”

“According to you.”

“According to all relevant sources of data.” 

“Neither of us is perfect, Amatus. Strike that, amend it: none of us is. None of us is pure. And when we have finished our tasks, the world won’t thank us for what we’ve done. You know that.” Dorian stroked his hands down the lean rogue’s arms, pressing his forehead to Aran’s. 

“I didn’t say ‘perfect’,” Aran whispered. “I said ‘good’.” 

“And you aren’t. Is that it?” Dorian cupped his cheek, forcing him to meet his eyes. “You think yourself some vile, corrupted thing. No, look at me.”

“I’m so sorry, Dorian.”

“For what?” he kissed Aran’s freckled cheek, felt the scars beneath his lips. “I own my choices, every one, and I regret none. And I regret not a single one of yours, either. For good or ill, Amatus. The more I think and the more I see, I am coming to the opinion that a monster is not such a terrible thing to be. From the Tevene root _monstrum_ , yes? A divine messenger of catastrophe. Then adapted by the Orlesians to mean an animal of myriad origins: centaurs, griffins, satyrs. To be a monster is to be a hybrid signal, a lighthouse: both shelter and warning at once.[2]” He studied the verdant twist of Fade that burned and brightened, attempting to etch away the last vestiges of blue in Aran’s gaze, yet there it remained, even after so long. Hidden sometimes, but not lost. “Perhaps we must, the both of us, embrace that we are monsters, and were always meant to be. Perhaps our heroism lies in the attempt, if we are able, to be good ones.”

“Good monsters?”

“You may be a heretic who has done terrible things for the sake of powers greater than yourself, and I may be a shameless Tevinter maleficar who has done terrible things for… any number of reasons, take your pick. But we are both risking life, limb, and love as we - rather valiantly, I would posit - try to save the world from things far worse than we could ever be. I think that earns us just a touch of leniency from whomever might be balancing the scales. Don’t you?”

Aran’s breath stuttered against his lips, his hands framing Dorian’s face. “I take it back.”

“You’re not a monster anymore? I’ll admit, I find myself rather attached to that identity now.”

Aran shook his head, biting his lip. “You might actually be perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] for the portrait, please take a look at the [incredible art ](https://johaeryslavellan.tumblr.com/post/190147726375/aran-trevelyan-for-the-lovely-oftachancer-this) by [johaerys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Johaerys/pseuds/Johaerys) of my sweet Aran in his youth. (And also check out her awesome fiction here on Ao3!)
> 
> [2] altered and paraphrased from Ocean Vuong’s “A Letter To My Mother That She Will Never Read”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, graphic/visceral descriptions of consensual sex, magic, and horror. 
> 
> Previously:
> 
> “Good monsters?” Aran asked.
> 
> “You may be a heretic who has done terrible things for the sake of powers greater than yourself, and I may be a shameless Tevinter maleficar who has done terrible things for… any number of reasons, take your pick. But we are both risking life, limb, and love as we valiantly try to save the world from things far worse than we could ever be. I think that earns us just a touch of leniency from whoever might be balancing the scales. Don’t you?”
> 
> Aran’s breath stuttered against his lips, his hands framing Dorian’s face. “I take it back.”
> 
> “You’re not a monster anymore? I’ll admit, I find myself rather attached to that identity now.”
> 
> Aran shook his head, biting his lip. “You might actually be perfect.”

“Tevinter breeding,” Dorian repeated quietly.

“Just kiss me until I can’t breathe.”

“You don’t need to breathe. We’re in your head.”

“Dorian!”

“In fact, we’ve probably managed all of this mind-mapping in the space of less than a breath. Fascinating to think about, isn’t it?” Dorian stroked his freckled cheek. ‘Perfect.’ The folly of that word. He’d sought it his entire life and the seeking was what had made its actualization always so far out of reach. A riddle, that. One couldn’t be something when one was trying so hard to become it. One couldn’t be everything to everyone. One could only be one’s self. And in so doing… Well, here was Aran, heart irrevocably stitched into his sleeve, gazing up at him like he could have hung the moon. As if he would have been willing to do so, rather than slipping it into his pocket to keep all for himself. Why couldn’t the man see? Why did he have to place so much faith, to offer himself and his heart so freely, when he should have been running? But the answer was obvious. As clear as a Nevarran diamond. And that one ringing response clarified everything around it, sending illuminating fractals into every other question Dorian could think of. “I think-“

“Don’t think. Don’t.” Aran leaned up into him and kissed… and kissed… until they were in warm ocean water, waves lapping at their ankles, their feet sinking into sand. “Just be with me.”

“Yes, but Aran, I need to tell you-“

“Do you love me?”

Pure, unfettered emotion climbed through his veins like mercury, liquid and dangerous. “You know that I do. I cannot bear the thought of you.”

He smiled, sighed, succumbed as the sea licked their skin like a lover. “So. That’s enough.”

“You’ve no idea what I was about to say.” 

Aran cracked an eye open, suspiciously. 

“Always so worried, aren’t you? Always fretting. End of the world, hither and yon through time, and there you are wringing your hands about everyone else.”

“Hardly.”

Dorian bent to nestle leisurely kisses beneath the man’s ear, taking his pulse and feeling his scars all in a breath. “Can I say what I intended to say or are you going to be argumentative?” 

A grumbly noise vibrated through Aran’s throat to Dorian’s lips. “What.”

“Just the endorsement I was looking for.” He stroked his hands down Aran’s back, “Let’s see, how should I phrase this...?”

“You’re making me nervous.”

“As you should be. We are in a dire situation within a dire situation within a dire situation. A veritable puzzle box of horrors. And yet, here we are. Ass in hand, as it were.” Aran snickered against his shoulder, lighting all sorts of firebugs and crackling storms in Dorian’s chest. “What I’m attempting to say is that I’ve been thinking, quite a lot-”

“I’m shocked.”

“Will you let me finish?”

“Yes, sorry, go on.”

“I’ve been thinking quite a lot in recent weeks, in your absence, about the trouble we find ourselves in. I have wracked my mind, wrecked two libraries, and made a quite befuddling muddle of my laboratory - all in an attempt to resolve our predicament. And now, finally, I think- I think I may have- at least to a certain extent solved a small piece of it.”

“So you said.”

“Yes. It’s just that… it occurs to me, I will need your participation.” 

“I thought you might.”

That gave Dorian pause. “Did you?”

“Well, it’s my curse, isn’t it?”

“Oh. Oh, yes, the curse.” He cleared his throat, smoothing his hands down Aran’s arms. Deceptively strong, Aran was. Enticingly erratic. “It won’t solve the curse, I’m afraid. It might, however, give us a fighting chance at not leaving me on some uncultured shore in your wake.”

“I’ll take what I can get,” Aran nodded, gamely. “Well?”

“Well. Yes.” Dorian eyed his hand as it slid up and over his shoulder. “Well.”

Aran crossed his eyes. 

“Don’t do that. You know it’s unnerving.”

“What’s unnerving is you not getting to your point.”

“Exactly. Yes. That’s it exactly. Not getting to the point. Thank you. There’s…” He lapsed into silence again as the swirls of fire in his gut slowly boiled the mercury in his veins and the ocean as far as the eye could see made him seasick. “You see- Hm. Are you familiar with Cleodatus, the alchemist who wrote the Chrysopoeia?”

“I’ve heard of the Chrysopoeia… That was one of the first incarnations of the idea of the philosopher's stone? Right?”

“Bless you,” he breathed, kissing Aran’s cheeks. “Yes. Exactly. But more importantly, to our purposes, he also illuminated and interpreted a series of Neromenian ruins. One of which was an inscription of particular interest known by a great many names. There is a dragon - an enormous depiction of a very lengthy dragon - that encircles the entirety of what later became Qarinus. I used to walk along its scales as a boy. A massive carving, remarkably well-preserved.” He watched Aran’s lips twitch fondly and wasn’t that the most wondrous of things? “In any case, there is a point near the city of Ventus, overlooking the Ventosus Straits, where you can stand atop the dragon’s head and gaze out across the bay. It’s a remarkable experience, standing there between the horns. The other end of the dragon dips beneath the city itself, some miles away, disappearing from view, but its tail… its tail emerges from the cliffs and tucks snugly into the dragon’s mouth. For a time, the connection to the dragon’s body had fallen away and it looked rather like the dragon was…” Dorian lifted a brow with a smirk, drawing a low chuckle from the man in his arms. Listening. Listening with his heart in his Fadetouched, gleaming eyes. “Well, you can imagine.”

“An inspiring sight.”

“Someone fixed it, of course, but the memory lives on.”

Aran snorted. “You’re a rascal and I love you.”

Dorian pulled him closer, resting his forehead against the shorter fellow’s, “Which is exactly what I’m saying.”

“You want to suck me off like a dragon?” Aran winched up his face. “I’d be concerned about the teeth.”

Dorian rolled his eyes, “Never since I was fourteen have I had a complaint about teeth.”

“I didn’t mean to impugn your honor,” Aran murmured. 

“Good. And no. I do not. Well, I didn’t,” he self-corrected wryly. “The dragon is, in fact, eating its own tail.”

Aran squinted. “I don’t think I’m that flexible.”

Dorian hummed on a throaty laugh, ”You’re very distracting, did you know that?”

“Yes. It was too easy. Sorry. Go on.”

“Cleodatus surmised that the meaning of the carving - in Qarinus and in other parts of the region - was meant to demonstrate a physical transmutation in concert with spiritual transcendence. An alchemical representation of release and liberation-”

“All is one.”

Dorian narrowed his eyes. “You’re familiar with the concept.”

Aran shrugged. “I’ve spent time in libraries, _a chuisle mo chroí._ I think we’ve established that. I _didn’t_ know about the life-size depiction in Qarinus.” Aran’s fingers laced at his back. He could feel them. Ten points of warmth through silk. “Why are we talking about the eternal dragon?”

“This.” Dorian drew a ring from his right hand, turning it in his fingers between them; a golden dragon with twining horns and emerald eyes that glinted in the sunlight, its scaled body curved into a circle, its tail caught between its sharp teeth.

“I always liked this one.”

“Oh, yes?” He pressed the horns, loosening a hinge in the gilded creature's jaw, and unfurled its tail from its mouth. “It was my mother’s.”

“Oh.” Aran sighed, softening. “It’s beautiful. I didn’t know it opened like that.”

“That’s rather the point. The hidden danger.” He straightened the golden links and smoothed his thumb over the sharpened spear of a tail. “Passed down through seventeen generations.” He pressed the point into his thumb and watched the blood well, then pressed his dripping fingertip to the ring’s mouth. “She wasn’t as particular about _maleficarum_ as my father. _‘Nihilominus magia_ [1],’ she used to drill into me.” He glanced at Aran, “She’d have liked you.”

“You think?”

“She’d have been appalled by _us,_ have no doubt, but _you_ \- she would have enjoyed your mind. You have so many interesting snacks of information tucked away within your mental cupboard.” Aran’s fingers climbed up his back and pressed, palms to the backs of his ribs. Holding him. Holding on. Comforting him, the brat. Fretting again. 

“Dorian,” he murmured softly. “If you’re worried about what people will say… about what happened before we left... we can walk it back, alright? Josie and Leliana can help us walk it back.”

Dorian heaved a sigh. “This is the trouble with kind people,” he muttered to himself. “Please use your ears. I told you that I regret nothing. I wouldn’t say as much if I didn’t mean it.”

Aran exhaled unsteadily. “Okay.”

“You are so ready for me to crush your beautiful heart under my heel. Even now.”

“I’m not. I just understand that it’s not an easy path…”

“Simple paths are for simple people. Focus, Amatus.” Dorian snapped his fingers between them. “Your hand, please. The one that’s all alight.” 

“We’re hypothesizing again?” Aran asked.

“Something to that effect.” He eyed the open gateway that twisted and disturbed Aran’s palm. “We’ll likely want to do this again, once we’re out of here, but I’ve never claimed to be patient; I’d like to attempt it _in hoc situ._ ”

“Blood magic.”

Dorian shrugged away the concern that fluttered in his throat at the look in Aran’s eyes. Not judging. Questioning. Thinking. Always thinking. “We’ve established that I am a mad maleficar monstrosity.”

“A lighthouse,” Aran corrected him softly. “Not mad. Brilliant. I know you’re struggling. If you think you’ve found an answer in this, then I’m with you.”

And Dorian’s heart melted. “As you will.”

“So you want to try it here, while there’s already a demon we know about. Is that the idea?”

“Not precisely,” Dorian smirked. “Not all blood magic involves deals with demons, you know; that’s a common misconception. There are spells, ancient ones, that use _animam sanguinis_ without dependence on the spirits at all.”

“And that’s what you want to do?”

“Yes. Very much. If you’ll allow me.”

“What’s the spell?” Aran asked. 

“It’s a binding ritual.”

“More Cleodatus,” the fellow grinned up at him mercilessly. “So, you’re thinking… what? An extended version of what you did to travel with me?”

“Yes.” Dorian smoothed his thumbs around the edges of Aran’s hand. “A very extended version. One might even call it ‘permanent’.”

Aran quirked a brow, looking up. 

“The eternal dragon doesn’t only mean ‘immortality’. It demonstrates an inevitability. A return to the source. That is why it eats its tail, you see. It is a Will than cannot be overcome, nor be ended.”

“Dorian…” 

He looked so serious. So full, overfull. “Hm? Yes, you’re quite right. I’ve skipped a step.”

“Dorian,” Aran said again, warning in his voice. He flexed, clasping Dorian’s hand in a tight grip as Dorian sank to his knees in the sea of Aran’s memory.

Committed now. No going backward. “Aran Conchobar Trevelyan.”

“Maker. What- what are you doing?”

“I should think it’s fairly obvious, Amatus.”

“Well, it seems that you’re…”

“I’m asking to bind your blood to mine, your hand to mine, your heart to mine, for a year and a day. And should we choose, for as long as we both manage to survive the insufferable bondage of mortality.”

Aran stared at him. “This isn’t a spell.”

“Of course it is; it’s one of the oldest.” 

“It’s… it’s a handfast, though,” Aran swallowed. His ears were red. His voice in flux like a leaf in a gentle breeze. 

Dorian watched him, waiting for the nerves to flutter and fill him, but they’d gone. Gone as soon as he’d taken the ring from his finger. He felt calm. Steadier than he had in weeks. Months. Perhaps years. “That is a way of looking at it.” He tilted his head, “It is a spell that requires consent.”

“Fuck me,” he breathed.

“Not quite the words I was looking for, but quite similar in intention.”

“You don’t have to- to marry me. That's- There are other ways. We can-“

“There is no method I would choose over this. Nothing I would prefer more.” Dorian watched him, searching his expression for clues. The blush that was creeping across his cheeks and down his neck. The way his eyes shone, liquid in the morning the light. “You see, I find myself quite at loose ends without you. You’re enlightening and invigorating and hateful, and I would rather like to tie myself to your waist and live shockingly at your side until all the little peoples’ minds pop like salmon eggs between our teeth.”

“Oh,” Aran exhaled. “Oh, I see.”

“Do you?” Dorian lifted his brows. “My knees are wet, Amatus. Could you share your thoughts?”

“A year and a day.” 

“Yes.”

“Or longer.”

“Yes.”

“Maker… My heart, my pulse-” his cheeks were flushed, his lip trembling under the assault of his teeth. “-you know my answer.”

Dorian rested his cheek against Aran’s fingers. “I suspect. I wouldn’t dare to assume.”

Aran joined him, knees to the sand, hands clasped. “I would gladly carve your name into my arms,” he murmured against Dorian’s lips. “A thumb prick is nothing.”

“I like your arms as they are.” He rubbed his thumb over Aran’s, “Will you take my blood and service as an offering and willing sacrifice?”

Aran bowed his head, “Of course I will.”

Dorian cut into his flesh, drawing a deep line into the bed of his thumb. “Now you ask me.”

Aran’s breath hitched. “Will you take my blood and service as an offering and willing sacrifice?”

“I will, gladly.” He offered the tiny golden dragon and watched as Aran drew its bladed tail into his own flesh unerringly. “Stars rise, tides ebb, these are constant.” He focused on the welling lines, willing the slender streams to rise above their hands, four sanguine threads braiding, separate but bound, extending as their blood continued to flow. “So, too, are we.” He brushed a finger through the living liquid chain, guiding it to wind around their wrists as they interlaced their fingers. It held its form as he wrapped it twice around their wrists, then guided each end to the beginning of the other. "V _elimus loquar ad illos, cum nocere nobis, ut nos pugnare,"_ he whispered, unable to look away. " _Ar'an rya pan dala efferus hostis tametsi banal'halam. Nos autem manent intacta. Amem'i'shalem. Ego veni ventum. Shira sul'syl!"_ The sea winds howled like wolves in the distance, panting, running closer. _"Cum rediero. Vin syla. Ventus venire. Shem'el. Sicut ignis. Avise. Venit ignis. Isenatha. Sicut sanguis. Saotehma. Sicut sanguis. Saotal saron sahl'in._ [2]" Their blood moved around and between them like a snake, warm to the touch, slick, and strong, twisting around their hands tighter and tighter as it coursed into and out of their wounds, throwing more and more threads into the tapestry. Dorian lifted his gaze to Aran’s and leaned in to press his own tears to his love’s, damp relief between their cheeks. “I love you,” he whispered. “Now and forever.”

Aran’s lips moved against his ear, “Now and forever.”

Still the churning threads tightened, pressing, making their fingers tingle and darken. The slick cord sped, burning into their skin as it tore around and through them. He could feel Aran’s blood pouring into his wound, tentacles twisting beneath his flesh. “It hurts,” he exhaled through the sensation. “I know. Pain is part of sacrifice.”

“Good to know it’s not just me.” Aran nipped at his ear. “Fuck, though. Is it supposed to burn?”

“Your scroll mentioned heat,” Dorian breathed steadily as the sensation built. “A melding. An impermeable bond.”

“My what?” Aran asked. 

“I had only read of the ritual, never actually found it before. The things you have hidden in your head...” He felt hot. Tight. His vision doubled. Aran was everywhere. Before him, beside him, around him, inside of him- oh, he needed that. Needed him. Slick and strong and deep. He inhaled the sharp scent of soil from his neck, lapping at the salt and sweat as Aran moaned. “Amatus-“

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Aran tugged at his ear with his teeth.

A searing jolt of heat pulsed directly into Dorian. Into him. Yes. More. He couldn’t think, couldn't breathe. Didn’t need to, his brain reminded him from some distance away. He was trapped, caught, tearing at Aran’s clothes like an animal as his robes were ripped from him, until there was only sweet, waiting, succulent flesh. He groaned, twisting between Aran’s opening thighs to catch his dripping cock against his lips and suck - fuck - brine and earth, blood and flesh. He was starving, insatiable. And Aran tasted so good - sunlight and fresh fields and the sizzle of the Fade scraping at the backs of his teeth. Then Aran’s mouth closed over him in turn, the sounds of his ecstasy sending vibrations of pleasure straight to Dorian’s core. They writhed together, hands clasped, wrists bound, as the beast they’d borne grew and slithered around them.

Blinding pain and binding pleasure; scales raked across his back, a serpentine chain thrust inside of him, deeper, twisting through his organs, searing him from the inside out. Dorian screamed, muffled by Aran’s flesh filling his mouth, pressing against the back of his throat, thrusting as he was taken. Fucked. Unrelenting. Agony and ecstasy. Still it churned, around and through them, thicker by the moment, crushing them together, filling them, until there was no end and no beginning. Inexorable. Inevitable. Salt. Burn. Ragged. Roaring. Fucking. Sucking. Twist and twining. 

Aran was gasping, gagging on him, groaning long and low. Soon, it wouldn’t matter if they needed air or not. Their bones would grind into dust even as they furiously ground into each other. A fitting end. A glorious one. _My beloved,_ he thought as scale and tooth and claw and fire and tight, tremulous flesh mangled them from the inside out, _I adore you more than words can remotely express_.

* * *

He opened his eyes, scorched from the inside, to find the sky full of stars and the waves sweetly kissing his heels. Copper and salt battled, bitter, at the back of his tongue. A dry, wretched croak flaked from his side, flexing his own throat with its effort.

“What scroll?” 

Dorian felt his tongue twist around the words, thick and sticky. The effort of answering was beyond him. Breathing was enough. He needed to breathe. He shouldn’t have. He knew that. And yet. Air surged into his lungs with a sharp nasal inhale. 

“What fucking scroll, Dorian?” 

Aran’s voice echoed - ragged, coiled around his tongue, pulled at the inside of his throat. It was a good question. He remembered reading it, there in Aran’s memory, a slim scroll amid many tomes. Ancient Tevene runes blending with elvhen calligraphy scrolling across its soft vellum. He’d never learned to read ancient elvhen, yet he was sure he’d read this one. Clear instructions, step by step, a living bond, a solution- leaping out of the darkness, wielding knowledge as a rogue wields a dagger, gleaming gilded text slicing seamlessly through his heartache and confusion and burying itself deep into his mind.

He turned his head, resting his cheek against Aran’s hip, peering at their raised, clasped hands. Bleeding, bright red, the imprint of a twining dragon encircling both of their wrists. He supposed he ought to have been marginally concerned about such an insignia, but they were familiar scales. No. Familiar chords. Not quite that either. He peeled himself from the sand, inch by inch, every muscle singing in distress… and Aran exhaled a creaky whine in answer, shivering. 

“Dorian...”

He was beautiful, a starling splayed in starlight. Sand glittering at his cheeks. His eyes sealed shut as though hiding from the brightest of suns. Used and flushed and limp. Scarred and torn. Branded and brazen. 

“Dorian…”

He dragged his face up Aran’s torso, nuzzling shredded flesh and bruises, watching them heal touch by touch. He could taste Aran’s exhaustion, his concern. He could lure the man’s quiet thrill of exhilaration up through his belly and make every hair on his body stand on end. He could make him cry out, turn pain to pleasure in an instant. The thought drew a quiet whimper from an abused throat. Aran’s hand fumbled up his shoulder, cupping the back of his head and holding Dorian’s face to his stomach, cradling him there, as his body hummed and gurgled and bucked helplessly. 

“Dorian…” he was moaning now, the pain slipping away from him like the waves. 

_Grasping. Greedy. Gaudy. Is this the kind of man you are?_ A syrupy voice oozed into his consciousness, louder than before. 

“What?” Aran gasped, asked, weary, curious. He lifted his head from the sand. Eyes still sealed shut with a thick crust. Dark. Shadows? No. Something oozed from beneath his lids, thick and glutinous. “Is it the demon? I can hear it. Is it here? Everything’s dark.” _That’s because your eyes are closed, you beautiful mess_ , Dorian thought. Aran’s eyelids peeled open and more of the sticky sludge slipped down his pretty, ruddy cheeks. Alive, alight, shimmering in the dark with cold, vibrant streaks of luminescent green and blue, wriggling into the scars on his face. Like worms. Like snakes. Slinking sticky from empty caves to cracked canyons.

 _More than I thought you were. More and less. So hungry. So blind._ It whispered to them from the trees. _I know you. I see you. “I need more,”_ Dorian’s voice gasped from the sky. _“I am so close.”_

Dorian tasted bile and salt, grit and meat. He shuddered as the darkness stretched towards them with sharp claws, shadows treading closer. He scooped Aran into his arms, out of reach, feeling his own flesh tearing with the effort of movement. Aran gasped, wet and hot, against Dorian’s shoulder.

“Where is it? What’s happening?”

He pressed his lips to Aran’s forehead as the shadows shifted, molding themselves into shapes.

“The chevaliers couldn’t stop them?” a breathless squire ran into existence, meeting a limping knight leading a warhorse.

“There weren’t enough of them, boy; Val Royeaux is burning. The Herald marches here next, bringing even more demons. You’d best run. Warn those you can. The Inquisition is coming.” 

“Are they talking about us?” Aran’s voice cracked, raw. “Who is it? Dorian?”

Dorian watched the shadows move and morph. What possible reason would they have to invade Orlais? What did this thing see in him that it thought he would stand for such idiocy? Let alone encourage it?

_So you’re curious. Shall I make use of that when I’m you?_

“You won’t get the chance to try,” Aran snarled.

“You’re wrong, you know. You’re wrong about so very many things,” Dorian’s voice cooed from the twisting shadows. 

“Please,” Aran scoffed. “You think I can’t tell the difference between you and him? I can, even with my eyes closed in the dark.”

“But it isn’t dark, Amatusss,” the stars winked merrily. “And your eyes are open.”

“You’re letting him see too much to sketch your shapes. Aren’t you tired?”

“Cole,” Aran breathed. “Is that Cole?”

“What he sees only makes him stronger,” the spirit emerged from the sea, taking Aran’s outstretched hand, watching the quivering trees. “Makes them stronger.”

_Oh, but he can’t see. Not anymore. Poor, foolish boy. Always giving things away. He’ll give them to me. All of them._

“Not on your life, mucker,” Aran bared his teeth. 

“You can let him see,” Cole murmured, meeting Dorian’s gaze. “You might as well. You changed your mind. You changed your shape. You changed everything.”

 _Quiet, thing_ , Envy hissed.

Cole was tracing the thick burns on Aran’s wrist, his brows drawn. His words a whisper stolen by the sea.

“Did you mean to?” the timid voice echoed in his ears, “Did you know? It will find it much harder to become you now. Clever, if you can bear it.”

Changed his shape? Dorian watched the shadows of boy and man twist together, shift and breathe like a sail catching wind, then collapse into a sleek reckoning.

Dorian dusted off his elbows, smiling too sharp. “The Herald has questions, Commander, about your failure to secure eastern Ferelden. What am I to tell him?” He brushed his fingers past the tall thin trunks of trees, exchanging the shoreline for a prison with a sweep of his hand.

“Is it my turn to be branded a traitor for questioning what we have become? I deserve it for letting him turn the Inquisition into a butcher’s pit. Or should I say, for letting you? We should have seen it coming; I always knew you were nothing but a snake, manipulating him.”

Dorian shuddered, looking down at the man in his arms. Healing moment by moment, but still undone. Unraveled. Meat in his arms. He spat a pulpy mouthful of sand and viscera to the side. It landed with a sickening plop and scurried away on tentacles across the stone floor. 

“Cole? Where are we?”

Dorian shuddered again.

“It’s dark, but it isn’t real.”

Cole reached up towards Dorian’s face and pulled; his lips moved out of time with his words, his cornflower petal eyes wide and wilting.

"Let him see. Let yourself be."

Ecstasy shattered Dorian’s mind. Pressure releasing; an oozing well of blood and ink and teeth and flesh coming unstoppered to flow freely to Aran’s belly in a warm, doughy splash. Still, Cole kept pulling the long, slippery, golden chain - out, out, out. Dorian’s eyes rolled back in his head as his ears popped, the world coming sharply into focus in a series of screams and shouts, distant roaring fires and territorial birds of prey. 

_You wish to be difficult. Watch me! See the legacy of the Inquisition! It’s followers: hosts to demons. Your world: ashes. Show me what you’d do with them. Show me what I will become!_

“Or don’t,” Cole whispered. “Don’t listen. Don’t-

It can’t make you. Not anymore. You’re too strong now. It’s angry. But that’s okay, so are you."

In their arms, Aran scrubbed at his eyes, peeling congealed mud and blood from his eyes - Fadestorms straining, steaming, shimmering in a darkened sea. They focused on him, narrowed. Looked and did not look away.

"Show me how angry you are-

Cole pulled more fleshy, gilded links like a sailor drawing anchor, “Please- please-

No one will run. Don't you understand? We've always seen you.”

The sea was full of broken things, unrepentant monsters like those on the shore. Dorian’s gaze swiveled back to the last lengths of the chain being drawn from his head; a long, rope of gold and silk, dripping with gore, full of it, pooling on Aran’s stomach. Heavy. Weighing them both down. A wide gilded skull collapsed from his own into Cole’s palms. A dragon’s head with emerald eyes, its mouth full of his own blood. His and Aran’s. Bubbling on its tongue. Acid and power. Theirs. Shared. Not separate. Bound and fierce as any creature on either side of the Fade. And they were of the Fade now. He could feel it, rich and tannic as fine wine on his palate, clearing the remnants from his tongue. Let him see? Oh, he would. He would let them all see. Dorian opened his maw, jaw cracking as he shrieked, pouring forth flame and fear and viscera as he burned the shadows from the walls, the floor, scorched the earth and broke apart the dreaming world. 

And as everything around them was set aflame by everything within him, smoke and shadow condensed and fled, into the empty cavity that awaited. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Tevene translation- “Nevertheless, magic.”
> 
> [2] Many thanks to the marvelous [Faerieavalon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/faerieavalon/pseuds/faerieavalon) for assistance with the Elvhen! Check our their amazing story [Sule Tael Tasalal - Until We Meet Again](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17121308/chapters/40266122).  
> Tevene-//Elvhen// Translation- "We would meet with them when they hurt us; we would fight. // We must fight to kill // the crazed enemy, even though //nothing truly ends.// We will remain untouched. //Protected and protecting.// I come with the wind. //To journey with the wind.// When I return. //Yes. Breathing.// Wind coming. //Faster.// As the fire. //The tongue of fire.// The fire. //The serpent of fire.// As blood. //About to bond.// As blood. //Bonded now as one.//" 
> 
> [3] Thank you for the feedback assistance from suliswrites!!! Check out her incredible Lumione story [The Unforgiveables](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16313798/chapters/54612628)! 
> 
> Thank you for reading! Come say hello on [Tumblr](http://oftachancer.tumblr.com/) if you're so inclined!


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